II The Later Marxism
The substance of lectures before students in Harvard
University in April, 1906.
Marx worked out his system of theory in the main during the third
quarter of the nineteenth century. He came to the work from the
standpoint given him by his early training in German thought,
such as the most advanced and aggressive German thinking was
through the middle period of the century, and he added to this
German standpoint the further premises given him by an
exceptionally close contact with and alert observation of the
English situation. The result is that he brings to his
theoretical work a twofold line of premises, or rather of
preconceptions. By early training he is a neo-Hegelian, and from
this German source he derives his peculiar formulation of the
Materialistic Theory of History. By later experience he acquired
the point of view of that Liberal-Utilitarian school which
dominated English thought through the greater part of his active
life. To this experience he owes (probably) the somewhat
pronounced individualistic preconceptions on which the doctrines
of the Full Product of Labor and the Exploitation of Labor are
based. These two not altogether compatible lines of doctrine
found their way together into the tenets of scientific 1
socialism, and give its characteristic Marxian features to the
body of socialist economics.
The socialism that inspires hopes and fears to-day is of the
school of Marx. No one is seriously apprehensive of any other
so-called socialistic movement, and no one is seriously concerned
to criticise or refute the doctrines set forth by any other
school of "socialists." It may be that the socialists of Marxist
observance are not always or at all points in consonance with the
best accepted body of Marxist doctrine. Those who make up the
body of the movement may not always be familiar with the details
perhaps not even with the general features -- of the Marxian
scheme of economics; but with such consistency as may fairly be
looked for in any popular movements the socialists of all
countries gravitate toward the theoretical position of the avowed
Marxism. In proportion as the movement in any given community
grows in mass, maturity, and conscious purpose, it unavoidably
takes on a more consistently Marxian complexion. It is not the
Marxism of Marx, but the materialism of Darwin, which the
socialists of today have adopted. The Marxist socialists of
Germany have the lead, and the socialists of other countries
largely take their cue from the German leaders.
The authentic spokesmen of the current international
socialism are avowed Marxists. Exceptions to that rule are very
few. On the whole, substantial truth of the Marxist doctrines is
not seriously questioned within the lines of the socialists, tho
there may be some appreciable divergence as to what the true
Marxist position is on one point and another. Much and eager
controversy circles about questions of that class.
The keepers of the socialist doctrines are passably agreed
as to the main position and the general principles. Indeed, so
secure is this current agreement on the general principles that a
very lively controversy on matters of detail may go on without
risk of disturbing the general position. This general position is
avowedly Marxism. But it is not precisely the position held by
Karl Marx. It has been modernized, adapted, tilled out, in
response to exigencies of a later date than those which
conditioned the original formulation of the theories. It is, of
course, not admitted by the followers of Marx that any
substantial change or departure from the original position has
taken place. They are somewhat jealously orthodox, and are
impatient of any suggested "improvements" on the Marxist
position, as witness the heat engendered in the "revisionist"
controversy of a few years back. But the jealous protests of the
followers of Marx do not alter the fact that Marxism has
undergone some substantial change since it left the hands of its
creator. Now and then a more or less consistent disciple of Marx
will avow a need of adapting the received doctrines to
circumstances that have arisen later than the formulation of the
doctrines; and amendments, qualifications, and extensions, with
this need in view, have been offered from time to time. But more
pervasive tho unavowed changes have come in the teachings of
Marxism by way of interpretation and an unintended shifting of
the point of view. Virtually, the whole of the younger generation
of socialist writers shows such a growth. A citation of personal
instances would be quite futile.
It is the testimony of his friends as well as of his
writings that the theoretical position of Marx, both as regards
his standpoint and as regards his main tenets, fell into a
definitive shape relatively early, and that his later work was
substantially a working out of what was contained in the position
taken at the outset of his career.2 By the latter half of the
forties, if not by the middle of the forties, Marx and Engels had
found the outlook on human life which came to serve as the point
of departure and the guide for their subsequent development of
theory. Such is the view of the matter expressed by Engels during
the later years of his life.3 The position taken by the two
greater leaders, and held by them substantially intact, was a
variant of neo-Hegelianism, as has been indicated in an earlier
section of this paper.4 But neo-Hegelianism was short-lived,
particularly considered as a standpoint for scientific theory.
The whole romantic school of thought, comprising neo-Hegelianism
with the rest, began to go to pieces very soon after it had
reached an approach to maturity, and its disintegration proceeded
with exceptional speed, so that the close of the third quarter of
the century saw the virtual end of it as a vital factor in the
development of human knowledge. In the realm of theory, primarily
of course in the material sciences, the new era belongs not to
romantic philosophy, but to the evolutionists of the school of
Darwin. Some few great figures, of course, stood over from the
earlier days, but it turns out in the sequel that they have
served mainly to mark the rate and degree in which the method of
scientific knowledge has left them behind. Such were Virchow and
Max Muller, and such, in economic science, were the great figures
of the Historical School, and such, in a degree, were also Marx
and Engels. The later generation of socialists, the spokesmen and
adherents of Marxism during the closing quarter of the century,
belong to the new generation, and see the phenomena of human life
under the new light. The materialistic conception in their
handling of it takes on the color of the time in which they
lived, even while they retain the phraseology of the generation
that went before them.5 The difference between the romantic
school of thought, to which Marx belonged, and the school of the
evolutionists into whose hands the system has fallen, -- or
perhaps, better, is falling, -- is great and pervading, tho it
may not show a staring superficial difference at any one point, -
at least not yet. The discrepancy between the two is likely to
appear more palpable and more sweeping when the new method of
knowledge has been applied with fuller realization of its reach
and its requirements in that domain of knowledge that once
belonged to the neo-Hegelian Marxism. The supplanting of the one
by the other has been taking place slowly, gently, in large
measure unavowedly, by a sort of precession of the point of view
from which men size up the facts and reduce them to intelligible
order.
The neo-Hegelian, romantic, Marxian standpoint was wholly
personal, whereas the evolutionistic -- it may be called
Darwinian -- standpoint is wholly impersonal. The continuity
sought in the facts of observation and imputed to them by the
earlier school of theory was a continuity of a personal kind, --
a continuity of reason and consequently of logic. The facts were
construed to take such a course as could be established by an
appeal to reason between intelligent and fair-minded men. They
were supposed to fall into a sequence of logical consistency. The
romantic (Marxian) sequence of theory is essentially an
intellectual sequence, and it is therefore of a teleological
character. The logical trend of it can be argued out. That is to
say, it tends to a goal. It must eventuate in a consummation, a
final term. On the other hand, in the Darwinian scheme of
thought, the continuity sought in and imputed to the facts is a
continuity of cause and effect. It is a scheme of blindly
cumulative causation, in which there is no trend, no final term,
no consummation. The sequence is controlled by nothing but the
vis a tergo of brute causation, and is essentially mechanical.
The neo-Hegelian (Marxian) scheme of development is drawn in the
image of the struggling ambitious human spirit: that of Darwinian
evolution is of the nature of a mechanical process.6
What difference, now, does it make if the materialistic
conception is translated from the romantic concepts of Marx into
the mechanical concepts of Darwinism? It distorts every feature
of the system in some degree, and throws a shadow of doubt on
every conclusion that once seemed secure.7 The first principle of
the Marxian scheme is the concept covered by the term
"Materialistic," to the effect that the exigencies of the
material means of life control the conduct of men in society
throughout, and thereby indefeasibly guide the growth of
institutions and shape every shifting trait of human culture.
This control of the life of society by the material exigencies
takes effect thru men's taking thought of material (economic)
advantages and disadvantages, and choosing that which will yield
the iller material measure of life. When the materialistic
conception passes under the Darwinian norm, of cumulative
causation, it happens, first, that this initial principle itself
is reduced to the rank of a habit of thought induced in the
speculator who depends on its light by the circumstances of his
life, in the way of hereditary bent, occupation, tradition,
education, climate, food supply, and the like. But under the
Darwinian norm the question of whether and how far material
exigencies control human conduct and cultural growth becomes a
question of the share which these material exigencies have in
shaping men's habits of thought; i.e., their ideals and
aspirations, their sense of the true, the beautiful, and the
good. Whether and how far these traits of human culture and the
institutional structure built out of them are the outgrowth of
material (economic) exigencies becomes a question of what kind
and degree of efficiency belongs to the economic exigencies among
the complex of circumstances that conduce to the formation of
habits. It is no longer a question of whether material exigencies
rationally should guide men's conduct, but whether, as a matter
of brute causation, they do induce such habits of thought in men
as the economic interpretation presumes, and whether in the last
analysis economic exigencies alone are, directly or indirectly,
effective in shaping human habits of thought.
Tentatively and by way of approximation some such
formulation as that outlined in the last paragraph is apparently
what Bernstein and others of the "revisionists" have been seeking
in certain of their speculations,8 and, sitting austere and
sufficient on a dry shoal up stream, Kautsky has
uncomprehendingly been addressing them advice and admonition
which they do not understand.9 The more intelligent and
enterprising among the idealist wing - where intellectual
enterprise is not a particularly obvious trait have been
struggling to speak for the view that the forces of the
environment may effectually reach men's spiritual life thru other
avenues than the calculus of the main chance, and so may give
rise to habitual ideals and aspirations independent of, and
possibly alien to, that calculus.10
So, again, as to the doctrine of the class struggle. In the
Marxian scheme of dialectical evolution the development which is
in this way held to be controlled by the material exigencies
must, it is held, proceed by the method of the class struggle.
This class struggle is held to be inevitable, and is held
inevitably to lead at each revolutionary epoch to a more
efficient adjustment of human industry to human uses, because.
when a large proportion of the community find themselves ill
served by the current economic arrangements, they take thought,
band together, and enforce a readjustment more equitable and more
advantageous to them. So long as differences of economic
advantage prevail, there will be a divergence of interests
between those more advantageously placed and those less
advantageously placed. The members of society will take sides as
this line of cleavage indicated by their several economic
interests may decide. Class solidarity will arise on the basis of
this class interest, and a struggle between the two classes so
marked off against each other will set in, -- a struggle which,
in the logic of the situation, can end only when the previously
less fortunate class gains the ascendency, -- and so must the
class struggle proceed until it shall have put an end to that
diversity of economic interest on which the class struggle rests.
All this is logically consistent and convincing, but it proceeds
on the ground of reasoned conduct, calculus of advantage, not on
the ground of cause and effect. The class struggle so conceived
should always and everywhere tend unremittingly toward the
socialistic consummation, and should reach that consummation in
the end, whatever obstructions or diversions might retard the
sequence of development along the way. Such is the notion of it
embodied in the system of Marx. Such, however, is not the showing
of history. Not all nations or civilizations have advanced
unremittingly toward a socialistic consummation, in which all
divergence of economic interest has lapsed or would lapse. Those
nations and civilizations which have decayed and failed, as
nearly all known nations and civilizations have done, illustrate
the point that, however reasonable and logical the advance by
means of the class struggle may be, it is by no means inevitable.
Under the Darwinian norm it must be held that men's reasoning is
largely controlled by other than logical, intellectual forces;
that the conclusion reached by public or class opinion is as
much, or more, a matter of sentiment than of logical inference;
and that the sentiment which animates men, singly or
collectively, is as much, or more, an outcome of habit and native
propensity as of calculated material interest. There is, for
instance, no warrant in the Darwinian scheme of things for
asserting a priori that the class interest of the working class
will bring them to take a stand against the propertied class. It
may as well be that their training in subservience to their
employers will bring them again to realize the equity and
excellence of the established system of subjection and unequal
distribution of wealth. Again, no one, for instance, can tell
to-day what will be the outcome of the present situation in
Europe and America. It may be that the working classes will go
forward along the line of the socialistic ideals and enforce a
new deal, in which there shall be no economic class
discrepancies, no international animosity, no dynastic politics.
But then it may also, so far as can be foreseen, equally well
happen that the working class, with the rest of the community in
Germany, England, or America, will be led by the habit of loyalty
and by their sportsmanlike propensities to lend themselves
enthusiastically to the game of drastic politics which alone
their sportsmanlike rulers consider worth while. It is quite
impossible on Darwinian ground to foretell whether the
"proletariat" will go on to establish the socialistic revolution
or turn aside again, and sink their force in the broad sands of
patriotism. It is a question of habit and native propensity and
of the range of stimuli to which the proletariat are exposed and
are to be exposed, and what may be the outcome is not a matter of
logical consistency, but of response to stimulus.
So, then, since Darwinian concepts have begun to dominate
the thinking of the Marxists, doubts have now and again come to
assert themselves both as to the inevitableness of the
irrepressible class struggle and to its sole efficacy. Anything
like a violent class struggle, a seizure of power by force, is
more and more consistently deprecated. For resort to force, it is
felt, brings in its train coercive control with all its apparatus
of prerogative, mastery, and subservience.11
So, again, the Marxian doctrine of progressive proletarian
distress, the so-called Verelendungstheorie, which stands pat on
the romantic ground of the original Marxism, has fallen into
abeyance, if not into disrepute, since the Darwinian conceptions
have come to prevail. As a matter of reasoned procedure, on the
ground of enlightened material interest alone, it should be a
tenable position that increasing misery, increasing in degree and
in volume, should be the outcome of the present system of
ownership; and should at the same time result in a well-advised
and well-consolidated working-class movement that would replace
the present system by a scheme more advantageous to the majority.
But so soon as the question is approached on the Darwinian ground
of cause and effect, and is analyzed in terms of habit and of
response to stimulus, the doctrine that progressive misery must
effect a socialistic revolution becomes dubious, and very shortly
untenable. Experience, the experience of history, teaches that
abject misery carries with it deterioration and abject
subjection. The theory of progressive distress fits convincingly
into the scheme of the Hegelian three-phase dialectic. It stands
for the antithesis that is to be merged in the ulterior
synthesis; but it has no particular force on the ground of an
argument from cause to effect.12
It fares not much better with the Marxian theory of value
and its corollaries and dependent doctrines when Darwinian
concepts are brought in to replace the romantic elements out of
which it is built up. Its foundation is the metaphysical equality
between the volume of human life force productively spent in the
making of goods and the magnitude of these goods considered as
human products. The question of such an equality has no meaning
in terms of cause and effect, nor does it bear in any
intelligible way upon the Darwinian question of the fitness of
any given system of production or distribution. In any
evolutionary system of economics the central question touching
the efficiency and fitness of any given system of production is
necessarily the question as to the excess of serviceability in
the product over the cost of production.13 It is in such an
excess of serviceability over cost that the chance of survival
lies for any system of production, in so far as the question of
survival is a question of production, and this matter comes into
the speculation of Marx only indirectly or incidentally, and
leads to nothing in his argument.
And, as bearing on the Marxian doctrines of exploitation,
there is on Darwinian ground no place for a natural right to the
full product of labor. What can be argued in that connection on
the ground of cause and effect simply is the question as to what
scheme of distribution will help or hinder the survival of a
given people or a given civilization.14 But these questions of
abstruse theory need not be pursued, since they count, after all,
but relatively little among the working tenets of the movement.
Little need be done by the Marxists to work out or to adapt the
Marxian system of value theory, since it has but slight bearing
on the main question, -- the question of the trend towards
socialism and of its chances of success. It is conceivable that a
competent theory of value dealing with the excess of
serviceability over cost, on the one hand, and with the
discrepancy between price and serviceability, on the other hand,
would have a substantial bearing upon the advisability of the
present as against the socialistic ráéágime, and would go far to
clear up the notions of both socialists and conservatives as to
the nature of the points in dispute between them.
But the socialists have not moved in the direction of this
problem, and they have the excuse that their critics have
suggested neither a question nor a solution to a question along
any such line. None of the value theorists have so far offered
anything that could be called good, bad, or indifferent in this
connection, and the socialists are as innocent as the rest.
Economics, indeed, has not at this point yet begun to take on a
modern tone, unless the current neglect of value theory by the
socialists be taken as a negative symptom of advance, indicating
that they at least recognize the futility of the received
problems and solutions, even if they are not ready to make a
positive move.
The shifting of the current point of view, from romantic
philosophy to matter-of-fact, has affected the attitude of the
Marxists towards the several articles of theory more than it has
induced an avowed alteration or a substitution of new elements of
theory for the old. It is always possible to make one's peace
with a new standpoint by new interpretations and a shrewd use of
figures of speech, so far as the theoretical formulation is
concerned, and something of this kind has taken place in the case
of Marxism; but when, as in the case of Marxism, the formulations
of theory are drafted into practical use, substantial changes of
appreciable magnitude are apt to show themselves in a changed
attitude towards practical questions. The Marxists have had to
face certain practical problems, especially problems of party
tactics, and the substantial changes wrought in their theoretical
outlook have come into evidence here. The real gravity of the
changes that have overtaken Marxism would scarcely be seen by a
scrutiny of the formal professions of the Marxists alone. But the
exigencies of a changing situation have provoked readjustments of
the received doctrinal position, and the shifting of the
philosophical standpoint and postulates has come into evidence as
marking the limits of change in their professions which the
socialistic doctrinaires could allow themselves.
The changes comprised in the cultural movement that lies
between the middle and the close of the nineteenth century are
great and grave, at least as seen from so near a standpoint as
the present day, and it is safe to say that, in whatever
historical perspective they may be seen, they must, in some
respects, always assert themselves as unprecedented. So far as
concerns the present topic, there are three main lines of change
that have converged upon the Marxist system of doctrines, and
have led to its latter-day modification and growth. One of these
-- the change in the postulates of knowledge, in the metaphysical
foundations of theory -- has been spoken of already, and its
bearing on the growth of socialist theory has been indicated in
certain of its general features. But, among the circumstances
that have conditioned the growth of the system, the most obvious
is the fact that since Marx's time his doctrines have come to
serve as the platform of a political movement, and so have been
exposed to the stress of practical party politics dealing with a
new and changing situation. At the same time the industrial
(economic) situation to which the doctrines are held to apply -
of which they are the theoretical formulation -- has also in
important respects changed its character from what it was when
Marx first formulated his views. These several lines of cultural
change affecting the growth of Marxism cannot be held apart in so
distinct a manner as to appraise the work of each separately.
They belong inextricably together, as do the effects wrought by
them in the system.
In practical politics the Social Democrats have had to make
up their account with the labor movement, the agricultural
population, and the imperialistic policy. On each of these heads
the preconceived program of Marxism has come in conflict with the
run of events, and on each head it has been necessary to deal
shrewdly and adapt the principles to the facts of the time. The
adaptation to circumstances has not been altogether of the nature
of the compromise, although here and there the spirit of
compromise and conciliation is visible enough. A conciliatory
party policy may, of course, impose an adaptation of form and
color upon the party principles. whether thereby seriously
affecting the substance of the principles themselves; but the
need of a conciliatory policy may, even more, provoke a
substantial change of attitude toward practical questions in a
case where a shifting of the theoretical point of view makes room
for a substantial change.
Apart from all merely tactical expedients, the experience of
the past thirty years has led the German Marxists to see the
facts of the labor situation in a new light, and has induced them
to attach an altered meaning to the accepted formulations of
doctrine. The facts have not freely lent themselves to the scheme
of the Marxist system, but the scheme has taken on such a new
meaning as would be consistent with the facts. The untroubled
Marxian economics, such as it finds expression in the Kapital and
earlier documents of the theory, has no place and no use for a
trade-union movement, or, indeed, for any similar non-political
organization among the working class, and the attitude of the
Social-Democratic leaders of opinion in the early days of the
party's history was accordingly hostile to any such movement,15
-- as much so, indeed, as the loyal adherents of the classical
political economy. That was before the modern industrial era had
got under way in Germany, and therefore before the German
socialistic doctrinaires had learned by experience what the
development of industry was to bring with it. It was also before
the modern scientific postulates had begun to disintegrate the
neo-Hegelian preconceptions as to the logical sequence in the
development of institutions.
In Germany, as elsewhere, the growth of the capitalistic
system presently brought on trade-unionism; that is to say, it
brought on an organized attempt on the part of the workmen to
deal with the questions of capitalistic production and
distribution by business methods, to settle the problems of
working-class employment and livelihood by a system of
nonpolitical, businesslike bargains. But the great point of all
socialist aspiration and endeavor is the abolition of all
business and all bargaining, and, accordingly, the Social
Democrats were heartily out of sympathy with the unions and their
endeavors to make business terms with the capitalist system, and
make life tolerable for the workmen under that system. But the
union movement grew to be so serious a feature of the situation
that the socialists found themselves obliged to deal with unions,
since they could not deal with the workmen over the heads of the
unions. The Social Democrats, and therefore the Marxian
theorists, had to deal with a situation which included the union
movement, and this movement was bent on improving the workman's
conditions of life from day to day. Therefore it was necessary to
figure out how the union movement could and must further the
socialistic advance; to work into the body of doctrines a theory
of how the unions belong in the course of economic development
that leads up to socialism, and to reconcile the unionist efforts
at improvement with the ends of Social Democracy. Not only were
the unions seeking improvement by unsocialistic methods, but the
level of comfort among the working classes was in some respects
advancing, apparently as a result of these union efforts. Both
the huckstering animus of the workmen in their unionist policy
and the possible amelioration of working-class conditions had to
be incorporated into the socialistic platform and into the
Marxist theory of economic development. The Marxist theory of
progressive misery and degradation has, accordingly, fallen into
the background, and a large proportion of the Marxists have
already come to see the whole question of working-class
deterioration in some such apologetic light as is shed upon it by
Goldscheid in his Verelendungs-oder Meliorationstheorie. It is
now not an unusual thing for orthodox Marxists to hold that the
improvement of the conditions of the working classes is a
necessary condition to the advance of the socialistic cause, and
that the unionist efforts at amelioration must be furthered as a
means toward the socialistic consummation. It is recognized that
the socialistic revolution must be carried through not by an
anaemic working class under the pressure of abject privation, but
by a body of fullblooded workingmen gradually gaining strength
from improved conditions of life. Instead of the revolution being
worked out by the leverage of desperate misery, every improvement
in working-class conditions is to be counted as a gain for the
revolutionary forces. This is a good Darwinism, but it does not
belong in the neo-Hegelian Marxism.
Perhaps the sorest experience of the Marxist doctrinaires
has been with the agricultural population. Notoriously, the
people of the open country have not taken kindly to socialism. No
propaganda and no changes in the economic situation have won the
sympathy of the peasant farmers for the socialistic revolution.
Notoriously, too, the large-scale industry has not invaded the
agricultural field, or expropriated the small proprietors, in
anything like the degree expected by the Marxist doctrinaires of
a generation ago. It is contained in the theoretical system of
Marx that, as modern industrial and business methods gain ground,
the small proprietor farmers will be reduced to the ranks of the
wage-proletariat, and that, as this process of conversion goes
on, in the course of time the class interest of the agricultural
population will throw them into the movement side by side with
the other wage-workmen.16 But at this point the facts have
hitherto not come out in consonance with the Marxist theory. And
the efforts of the Social Democrats to convert the peasant
population to socialism have been practically unrewarded. So it
has come about that the political leaders and the keepers of the
doctrines have, tardily and reluctantly, come to see the facts of
the agrarian situation in a new light, and to give a new phrasing
to the articles of Marxian theory that touch on the fortunes of
the peasant farmer. It is no longer held that either the small
properties of the peasant farmer must be absorbed into larger
properties, and then taken over by the State, or that they must
be taken over by the State directly, when the socialistic
revolution is established. On the contrary, it is now coming to
be held that the peasant proprietors will not be disturbed in
their holdings by the great change. The great change is to deal
with capitalistic enterprise, and the peasant farming is not
properly "capitalistic." It is a system of production in which
the producer normally gets only the product of his own labor.
Indeed, under the current régime of markets and credit relations,
the small agricultural producer, it is held, gets less than the
product of his own labor, since the capitalistic business
enterprises with which he has to deal are always able to take
advantage of him. So it has become part of the overt doctrine of
socialists that as regards the peasant farmer it will be the
consistent aim of the movement to secure him in the untroubled
enjoyment of his holding, and free him from the vexatious
exactions of his creditors and the ruinous business traffic in
which he is now perforce involved. According to the revised code,
made possible by recourse to Darwinian concepts of evolution
instead of the Hegelian three-phase dialectic, therefore, and
contrary to the earlier prognostications of Marx, it is no longer
held that agricultural industry must go thru the capitalistic
mill, and it is hoped that under the revised code it may be
possible to enlist the interest and sympathy of this obstinately
conservative element for the revolutionary cause. The change in
the official socialist position on the agricultural question has
come about only lately, and is scarcely yet complete, and there
is no knowing what degree of success it may meet with either as a
matter of party tactics or as a feature of the socialistic theory
of economic development. All discussions of party policy, and of
theory so far as bears on policy, take up the question; and
nearly aIl authoritative spokesmen of socialism have modified
their views in the course of time on this point.
The socialism of Karl Marx is characteristically inclined to
peaceable measures and disinclined to a coercive government and
belligerent politics. It is, or at least it was, strongly averse
to international jealousy and patriotic animosity, and has taken
a stand against armaments, wars, and dynastic aggrandizement. At
the time of the French-Prussian war the official organization of
Marxism, the International, went so far in its advocacy of peace
as to urge the soldiery on both sides to refuse to fight. After
the campaign had warmed the blood of the two nations, this
advocacy of peace made the International odious in the eyes of
both French and Germans. War begets patriotism, and the
socialists fell under the reproach of not being sufficiently
patriotic. After the conclusion of the war, the Socialistic
Workingmen's Party of Germany sinned against the German patriotic
sentiment in a similar way and with similarly grave results.
Since the foundation of the empire and of the Social-Democratic
party, the socialists and their doctrines have passed thru a
further experience of a similar kind, but on a larger scale and
more protracted. The government has gradually strengthened its
autocratic position at home, increased its warlike equipment, and
enlarged its pretensions in international politics, until what
would have seemed absurdly impossible a generation ago is now
submitted to by the German people, not only with a good grace,
but with enthusiasm. During all this time that part of the
population that has adhered to the socialist ideals has also
grown gradually more patriotic and more loyal, and the leaders
and keepers of socialist opinion have shared in the growth of
chauvinism with the rest of the German people. But at no time
have the socialists been able to keep abreast of the general
upward movement in this respect. They have not attained the pitch
of reckless loyalty that animates the conservative German
patriots, although it is probably safe to say that the Social
Democrats of to-day are as good and headlong patriots as the
conservative Germans were a generation ago. During all this
period of the new era of German political life the socialists
have been freely accused of disloyalty to the national ambition,
of placing their international aspirations above the ambition of
imperial aggrandizement.
The socialist spokesmen have been continually on the
defensive. They set out with a round opposition to any
considerable military establishment, and have more and more
apologetically continued to oppose any "undue" extension of the
warlike establishments and the warlike policy. But with the
passage of time and the habituation to warlike politics and
military discipline, the infection of jingoism has gradually
permeated the body of Social Democrats, until they have now
reached such a pitch of enthusiastic loyalty as they would not
patiently hear a truthful characterization of. The spokesmen now
are concerned to show that, while they still stand for
international socialism, consonant with their ancient position,
they stand for national aggrandizement first and for
international comity second. The relative importance of the
national ad the international ideals in German socialist
professions has been reversed since the seventies.17 The leaders
are busy with interpretation of their earlier formulations. They
have come to excite themselves over nebulous distinctions between
patriotism and jingoism. The Social Democrats have come to be
German patriots first and socialists second, which comes to
saving that they are a political party working for the
maintenance of the existing order, with modifications. They are
no longer a party of revolution, but of reform, tho the measure
of reform which they demand greatly exceeds the Hohenzollern
limit of tolerance. They are now as much, if not more, in touch
with the ideas of English liberalism than with those of
revolutionary Marxism.
The material and tactical exigencies that have grown out of
changes in the industrial system and in the political situation,
then, have brought on far-reaching changes of adaptation in the
position of the socialists. The change may not be extremely large
at any one point, so far as regards the specific articles of the
program, but, taken as a whole, the resulting modification of the
socialistic position is a very substantial one. The process of
change is, of course, not yet completed, -- whether or not it
ever will be, but it is already evident that what is taking place
is not so much a change in amount or degree of conviction on
certain given points as a change in kind, - a change in the
current socialistic habit of mind.
The factional discrepancies of theory that have occupied the
socialists of Germany for some years past are evidence that the
conclusion, even a provisional conclusion, of the shifting of
their standpoint has not been reached. It is even hazardous to
guess which way the drift is setting. It is only evident that the
past standpoint, the standpoint of neo-Hegelian Marxism, cannot
be regained, -- it is a forgotten standpoint. For the immediate
present the drift of sentiment, at least among the educated,
seems to set toward a position resembling that of the National
Socials and the Rev. Mr. Naumann; that is to say, imperialistic
liberalism. Should the conditions, political, social, and
economic, which to-day are chiefly effective in shaping the
habits of thought among the German people, continue substantially
unchanged and continue to be the chief determining causes, it
need surprise no one to find German socialism gradually changing
into a somewhat characterless imperialistic democracy. The
imperial policy seems in a fair way to get the better of
revolutionary socialism, not by repressing it, but by force of
the discipline in imperialistic ways of thinking to which it
subjects all classes of the population. How far a similar process
of sterilization is under way, or is likely to overtake the
socialist movement in other countries, is an obscure question to
which the German object-lesson affords no certain answer.
Notes:
1. "Scientific" is here used in the half technical sense which
by usage it often has in this connection, designating the
theories of Marx and his followers.
2. There is, indeed, a remarkable consistency, amounting
substantially to an invariability of position, in Marx's writing,
from the Communist Manifesto to the last volume of the Capital.
The only portion of the great Manifesto which became antiquated,
in the apprehension of its creators, is the polemics addressed to
the Philosophical" socialists of the forties and the illustrative
material taken from contemporary politics. The main position and
the more important articles of theory, the materialistic
conception, the doctrine of class struggle, the theory of value
and surplus value, of increasing distress, of the reserve army,
of the capitalistic collapse are to be found in the Critique of
Political Economy (1859), and much of them in the Misery of
Philosophy (1847), together with the masterful method of analysis
and construction which he employed throughout his theoretical
work.
3. Cf. Engels, Feuerbach (English translation, Chicago, 1903),
especially Part IV., various papers published in the Neue Zeit;
also the preface to the Communist Manifesto written in 1888; also
the preface to volume II of Capital, where Engels argues the
question of Marx's priority in connection with the leading
theoretical principles of his system.
4. Cf. Feuerbach, as above; The Development of Socialism from
Utopia to Science, especially sections II and III.
5. Such a socialist as Anton Menger, e.g., comes into the
neo-Marxian school from without, from the field of modern
scientific inquiry, and shows, at least virtually, no Hegelian
color, whether in the scope of his inquiry, in his method, or in
the theoretical work which he puts forth. It should be added that
his Neue Staatslehre and Neue Sittenlehre are the first
socialistic constructive work of substantial value as a
contribution to knowledge, outside of economic theory proper,
that has appeared since Lassalle. The efforts of Engels (Ursprung
der Familie) and Bebel (Der Frau) would scarcely be taken
seriously as scientific monographs even by hot-headed socialists
if it were not for the lack of anything better. Menger's work is
not Marxism, whereas Engels' and Bebel's work of this class is
practically without value or originality. The unfitness of the
Marxian postulates and methods for the purposes of modern science
shows itself in the sweeping barrenness of socialistic literature
all along that line of inquiry into the evolution of institutions
for the promotion of which the materialistic dialectic was
invented.
6. This contrast holds between the original Marxism of Marx and
the scope and method of modern science; but it does not,
therefore, hold between the latterday Marxists -- who are largely
imbued with post-Darwinian concepts -- and the non-Marxian
scientists. Even Engels, in his latter-day formulation of Marxism
is strongly affected with the notions of post-Darwinian science,
and reads Darwinism into Hegel and Marx with a good deal of
naivete. (See his Feuerbach, especially pp. 93-98 of the English
translation.) So, also, the serious but scarcely quite consistent
qualification of the materialistic conception offered by Engels
in the letters printed in the Sozialistische Akademiker, 1895.
7. The fact that the theoretical structures of Marx collapse when
their elements are converted into the terms of modern science
should of itself be sufficient proof that those structures were
not built by their maker out of such elements as modern science
habitually makes use of. Marx was neither ignorant, imbecile, nor
disingenuous, and his work must be construed from such a point of
view and in terms of such elements as will enable his results to
stand substantially sound and convincing.
8. Cf. Voraussetzungen des Sozialismus, especially the first two
(critical) chapters. Bernstein's reverent attitude toward Marx
and Engels, as well as his somewhat old-fashioned conception of
the scope and method of science, gives his discussion an air of
much greater consonance with the orthodox Marxism than it really
has. In his latter expressions this consonance and conciliatory
animus show up more strongly rather than otherwise. (See
Socialism and Science, including the special preface written for
the French edition.) That which was to Marx and Engels the point
of departure and the guiding norm -- the Hegelian dialectic -- is
to Bernstein a mistake from which scientific socialism must free
itself. He says, e.g., (Voraussetzungen, end of ch. iv.), "The
great things achieved by Marx and Engels they have achieved not
by the help of the Hegelian dialectic, but in spite of it."
The number of the "revisionists" is very considerable, and
they are plainly gaining ground as against the Marxists of the
older line of orthodoxy. They are by no means agreed among
themselves as to details, but they belong together by virtue of
their endeavor to so construe (and amend) the Marxian system as
to bring it into consonance with the current scientific point of
view. One should rather say points of view, since the revisionist
endevors are not all directed to bringing the received views in
under a single point of view. There are two main directions of
movement among the revisionists: (a) those who, like Bernstein,
Conrad Schmidt, Tugan-Baronowski, Labriola, Ferri, aim to bring
Marxism abreast of the standpoint of modern science, essentially
Darwinists; and (b) those who aim to return to some footing on
the level of romantic philosophy. The best type and the strongest
of the latter class are the neo-Kantians, embodying that spirit
of revulsion to romantic norms of theory that makes up the
philosophical side of the reactionary movement fostered by the
discipline of German imperialism. (See K. Vorlander, Die
neukantische Bewegung im Sozialismus.)
Except that he is not officially inscribed in the socialist
calender, Sombart might be cited as a particularly effective
revisionist, so far as concerns the point of modernizing Marxism
and putting the modernized materialistic conception to work.
9. Cf. the files of the Neue Zeit, particularly during the
controversy with Bernstein, and Bernstein und das
Sozialdemokratische Programm.
10. The "idealist" socialists are even more in evidence outside
of Germany. They may fairly be said to be in the ascendant in
France, and they are a very strong and free-spoken contingent of
the socialist movement of America. They do not commonly speak the
language either of science or of philosophy, but, so far as their
contentions may be construed from the standpoint of modern
science, their drift seems to be something of the kind indicated
above. At the same time the spokesmen of this scattering and
shifting group stand for a variety of opinions and aspirations
that cannot be classified under Marxism, Darwinism, or any other
system of theory. At the margin they shade off into theology and
the creeds.
11. Throughout the revisionist literature in Germany there is
visible a softening of the traits of the doctrine of the class
struggle, and the like shows itself in the programs of the party.
Outside of Germany the doctrinaire insistence on this tenet is
weakening even more decidedly. The opportunist politicians, with
strong aspirations, but with relatively few and ill-defined
theoretical preconceptions, are gaining ground.
12. Cf. Bernstein, Die heutige Sozialdemokratie in Theorie und
Praxis, an answer to Brunhuber, Die heutige Sozialdemokratie,
which should be consulted in the same connection; Goldscheid,
Verelendungs- oder Meliorationstheorie; also Sombart, Sozialismus
und soziale Bewegung, 5th edition, pp. 86-89.
13. Accordingly, in later Marxian handling of the questions of
exploitation and accumulation, the attention is centred on the
"surplus product" rather than on the "surplus value". It is also
currently held that the doctrines and practical consequences
which Marx derived from the theory of surplus value would remain
substantially well founded, even if the theory of surplus value
were given up. These secondary doctrines could be saved -- at the
cost of orthodoxy -- by putting a theory of surplus product in
the place of the theory of surplus value, as in effect is done by
Bernstein (Sozialdemokratie in Theorie und Praxis, sec. 5. Also
various essays included in Zur Geschichte und Theorie des
Sozialismus).
14. The "right to the full product of labor" and the Marxian
theory of exploitation associated with that principle has fallen
into the background, except as a campaign cry designed to stir
the emotions of the working class. Even as a campaign cry it has
not the prominence, nor apparently the efficacy, which it once
had. The tenet is better preserved, in fact, among the
"idealists", who draw for their antecedents on the French
Revolution and the English philosophy of natural rights, than
among the latter-day Marxists.
15. It is, of course, well known that even in the transactions
and pronunciamentos of the International a good word is
repeatedly said for the trade-unions, and both the Gotha and the
Erfurt programs speak in favor of labor organizations, and put
forth demands designed to further the trade-union endeavors. But
it is equally well known that these expressions were in good part
perfunctory, and that the substantial motive behind them was the
politic wish of the socialists to conciliate the unionists, and
make use of the unions for the propaganda. The early expressions
of sympathy with the unionist cause were made for an ulterior
purpose. Later on, in the nineties, there comes a change in the
attitude of the socialist leaders toward the unions.
16. Cf. Capital, vol. i. ch. xiii., sect. 10.
17. Cf. Kautsky, Erfurter Programm, ch. v., sect. 13; Bernstein,
Voraussetzungern, ch. iv., sect. e.